Cross Country Adventure - Day 10 - Evergreen CO to Moab, Utah

The main street in Evergreen

In the thirty-six hours or so that we had been in Evergreen we hadn’t actually made it in to the town center. Many years ago (and I mean many) I had been through Evergreen on a bus tour and thought it a charming small town with its wooden boardwalks and western feel. I wanted to see if it had changed at all so we made it our first stop of the day. To my surprise, it looked much as I remembered it.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 9 - Evergreen, Colorado

Without the pressure of having to drive to the next night’s accommodation, we’d originally thought we would spend the day exploring Denver, but after driving through the city the previous day that idea no longer appealed. Our host Celia suggested that instead she would take us to MountEvans, the highest auto-accessible point in the country, an offer we eagerly accepted.

Mount Evans is a national park and is only 19 miles from where we were staying in Evergreen, but the trip is mostly on narrow roads winding up to the entrance of the park, a road so popular with cyclists that the journey cannot be hurried. One of the benefits of slow driving, however, is the opportunity to spot wildlife among the trees.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 8 - Raton to Evergreen, Colorado

Raton, New Mexico is so close to the southern border of Colorado that within ten minutes of leaving our motel, we had crossed into Colorado. The scenery ahead changed dramatically with rocky crags and mountain ranges looming large in the distance. 

A three hour drive north on I-25 brought us to the town of Pueblo at an elevation of 4,695 ft. We found a parking lot which must rate as one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen.